Thread: Torrents are killing my connection.

Thats what my speed test looks like when I'm using torrents (with the torrents supposedly doing about 30KB/s.


Thats my speed test when the torrents are stopped. I'm paying for a 4 meg connection so obviously my ISP is screwing me (although they did say something about doing work on the network, so its not a total surprise).

Regardless of any work being done to the network, I don't see why torrents should so badly affect my connection when they are supposedly doing only about 30KB/s.

Is there anything that can be done?

I'm using XP SP2, AMD sempron 3000+ (1.8GHz), ASUS K8N4-E deluxe mother board, 2x 512MB RAM, GeForce 7900GT and 2 SATA HDs.
My browser is IE6 and my BT client is Bitcomet 0.70, I'm using the latest version of MSN and my anti virus is AVG free edition.

EDIT: I don't have a router, I'm connected directly to the modem. My ISP is NTL/Virgin media, its a cable connection.

your ISP must be restricting your access when you use BT (some are doing that to save some bandwith)
Unless the experts here have another idea as for the cause of this, and you want to complain about it to your ISP, you better be sure you weren't downloading anything illegal ^^"

Yeah, but the torrents don't seem to be restricted at all, I had two torrents on earlier each fairly well seeded, running at about 80KB/s each at their peak.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I've tried limiting the DL rate in bitcomet (its limited to 800Kb/s ATM, UL at 60KB/s). I also tried setting priorities in task manager with the processes tab, setting BC to low did nothing, setting IE to real time froze my computer (always does that, with any process).

EDIT: That 30KB/s for torrents I mentioned earlier, is in total, not per task.

Originally Posted by 98abaile

Yeah, but the torrents don't seem to be restricted at all, I had two torrents on earlier each fairly well seeded, running at about 80KB/s each at their peak.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I've tried limiting the DL rate in bitcomet (its limited to 800Kb/s ATM, UL at 60KB/s). I also tried setting priorities in task manager with the processes tab, setting BC to low did nothing, setting IE to real time froze my computer (always does that, with any process).

EDIT: That 30KB/s for torrents I mentioned earlier, is in total, not per task.

BitComet is not a good Torrent Client. Utorrent is much better.

BitComet actually gets restricted by alot of other clients due to some thing that is called "stealing" from others without uploading or something ,so i hear.
Utorrent is the way to go on BC i got 20-30 kbps and on utorrent 80-300

even if bitcomet was a bad BT client, what's happening to abaile is weird and a priori not related to the BT client he uses (it would be weird..)
You may test it with a different BT client to be sure though...

Moving this first off... would be better in the BT/IRC section.

My only ideas has to do with connection limits and handling of it. How's your network set up? Is it wireless? What's the router make and model? Are your ports forwarded? Have you broken window's TCP limit for SP2? How many connections is your BT client set to make at a time? Is your software firewall set to allow the bit torrent program (or the correct ports if it's rule based) to do it's duty?

Also, try a different client. Azerus and uTorrent are your best bets for most network friendly (if you haven't forwarded your ports, and your router supports it, you might try giving uPnP a try).

The speed seems to have picked up a bit now (not great though and still doesn't account for such a high loss in speed).
With torrents doing about 110KB/s total:


Without torrents:


I guess my ISP has been fucking around with the network for four days.

For future reference though, could you answer my questions below.

Originally Posted by Volvogga

My only ideas has to do with connection limits and handling of it. How's your network set up? Is it wireless? What's the router make and model? Are your ports forwarded? Have you broken window's TCP limit for SP2? How many connections is your BT client set to make at a time? Is your software firewall set to allow the bit torrent program (or the correct ports if it's rule based) to do it's duty?

Ethernet cable diect from computer to modem. Not wireless. I don't have a router. How do I forward ports (can I even do that without a router?)? What is a TCP limit, how do I break it, should I even break it? How do I check? I looked for settings, I couldn't find anything to do with that in my anti virus settings; my anti-virus is AVG free edition, as far as firewall is concerned i haven't installed anything, so I'm assuming my computer is using a windows firewall, what do I need to do?


My BT client is using port 8602 (chosen at random).

Umm...

I never used Window's Firewall straight, so... not sure. I would ASSUME that allowing the program allows all traffic (TCP and UDP on ANY port). Also, I would set the BitTorrent client to use a static port, then you just set the port that you need.

Umm, ok.
Your modem may have router capabilites built in. Sometimes they call it a built-in firewall or something. Only way to find out is to try and log into the modem. Your probably getting you IP address from the modem via DHCP, so you just type the gateway address into your web browser and see what happens (go to the command line and type 'ipconfig' to find your gateway address).

The TCP limit... well, read this and decide for yourself.
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1497

And anti-virus has almost nothing to do with this... and knowing your using AVG makes it's chances even less.

Since you are using BitComet go here to setup your client.